1. Field
The present application relates to a cell observing apparatus and a cell incubation method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A process of generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) is disclosed in, for example, Non-Patent Document 1 (Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, “Generation of Human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”, Kyoto University, Mar. 5, 2009).
In the process in Non-Patent Document 1, a feeder cell layer is first formed on a bottom surface of an incubation container that accommodates culture fluid, human adult skin cells (fibroblasts) are seeded on the layer, and then four genes called as Yamanaka factors are introduced into those cells (retroviral vectors for introducing the four genes are added). Thereafter, when the incubation is continued while changing the culture fluid, a cell colony in which the four genes are introduced and nothing else happens (Non-iPS cell colony) and a cell colony in which after the four genes are introduced, a differentiation potency is exhibited (iPS cell colony) appear, on the feeder cell, so that by picking up only the latter among the above using a syringe, the generation of iPS cell line is realized.
In this process, the picking of cell colony is manually performed by a skilled researcher while looking through an eyepiece lens of a microscope. At that time, the researcher sets an observation magnification of the microscope to a low-power side to observe a relatively wide range of the incubation container, and searches for the iPS cell colony. Subsequently, a stage is moved to dispose the cell colony in a vicinity of an optical axis of an objective lens, the observation magnification of the microscope is then set to a high-power side, and after the cell colony is confirmed as the iPS cell colony, the observation magnification of the microscope is returned to the low-power side, and a tip of the syringe is inserted into a dish to perform a picking of the cell colony.
However, when the cell colony was the Non-iPS cell colony, there was a need to reset the observation magnification of the microscope to the low-power side, to again search for a cell colony which seems like the iPS cell colony.